Participatory Territorial Narrative Mechanisms

Office

(en>>gr)

Hariklia Hari, 7/10/2013

The office at 8 Stenon Portas str was my fathers’ office. My adolescence, a part of my student life and a part of my adult life as an architect, are connected to this site. From 1981 till 2000 i received both economical security and the belief that labour is a “claiming in a tough, mean world”. I connected power to violence and my need of other people to inability. I could do all on my own. On 2000 my father for personal reasons quit the office and discouraged its further continuation. He alloted the space, as redisence, to a homeless friend. On 2004 or 5 my father granted the office to me. For more or less three days, four people conveyed to the trash the greater part of the objects that were found in the room; me, Romina, her husband and her son.

The office seemed empty and tidy. Yet it was refilled without being inhabited. The accumulation of brochures, technical files, appearing small objects , power outages, the food container and litter of the cat Pagratis, all lived there. My mind was suffering from disuse. It was almost unbearable to go inside.

In June 2010, my son Orestes designs at the entrance of the office the graffiti “I was free”. In July 2012, in the heat, with the support of my friends Aliki and Demeter, graphic designers with whom we though of opening an office at this site, and Pyrrus, craftsman, I implemented the next step of the transformation of the space. Each project ι threw from the loft, a tear. Οr a river of tears and a caress, obstinately look of Demeter and “well you need this now?”. The space was not completely evacuated but it finally stabilized.

October 2013. The Office is now for me a topos that opens and expands with the synergy of my friends and the “blessing” of my father.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

On October 11, after thirteen years of enclosure, the office opens. With a (micro)exhibition; a collective site specific installation. An installation where the site itself narrates its new “spirit”: the work of the artists interracting with the eliptic choice of the remains of the office; a half opened cupboard with technical files, some notes from 1994 hanging on the wall, a collection of architectural and art magazines of the ’90s. This work is a cpllective installation where all of us complete what was left unsaid all these years. In greek the word that would express my feelings for my collaborators is “synodoiporos” (in english it is cotraveller). So my synodoiporoi at this travel are Irini Bachlitzanaki, Stelios Karamanolis, Christos Kotsoulas (Capten), Caroline May, Giorgos Papadatos, Io Paschou, Angela Svoronou, Yiannis Theodoropoulos, Theophilos Tramboulis, Katerina Zafeiropoulou, Angelos Skourtis and my son Orestis (here presented by his work as Orco).